‘I was on Big Brother – here’s when bosses would secretly intervene’-Meghna Amin-Entertainment – Metro

Legendary Big Brother stars have spilled secrets of the ITV show (Picture: James Veysey/REX/Shutterstock)

Legendary Big Brother stars have reflected on their time on the original programme, which has returned for a second season after being revived last year.

The ITV show is back with a bang, with one housemate having already faced eviction.

Big Brother, which gave us the likes of Alison Hammond and Adele Roberts, and the spin-off that hosted names including Rylan Clark and Gemma Collins, initially ran from 2000 to 2010 on Channel 4.

It was presented by Davina McCall and Rylan before its move to Channel 5 until 2018 where it was hosted by series two champion Brian Dowling and later Emma Willis.

Now, AJ Odudu and Will Best have taken over, as the drama continues.

The original seasons of Big Brother gave us moments that have carved their way into cultural history, from ‘David’s Dead’ to Vanessa Feltz’s 2001 meltdown.

But what was it like to be on a part of it all? We spoke to four contestants who took part over the years: Harjender ‘Gos’ Gosal from season 4, series 5 winner Anthony Hutton, model Deana Uppal from series 13, and 2018 champion Cameron Cole.

‘Big Brother never broke character but producers would step in when it got really bad’

According to hairdresser Anthony, 41, Big Brother ‘always stayed in character’ and would never intervene, even when producers did.

‘We didn’t speak [to] or see intervenes from producers,’ Anthony explained. ‘Every situation that unfold happens organically.’

But he added that Big Brother would ‘step in’ if there appeared to be something close to a physical altercation or ‘if it was really bad’.

‘I think there’s twice, off the top of my head, where there were situations that potentially could look like it would spiral into a physical altercation, when they would say “can such and such come straight to the den immediately” and then that person wold go straight to the den and it would be dealt with that way.

‘The only time they would step in back then is if there was going to be a physical altercation.’

Anthony Hutton was crowned the winner of Big Brother season 5 (Picture: Channel Four/Channel 5)

‘They don’t air the “normal” stuff’

While the original Big Brother seasons allowed super-keen fans to keep an eye on the house via a 24-hour live-stream, it was all eventually cut down to just the one hour edited show, in which, they wouldn’t air the ‘normal’ stuff.

Cameron revealed: ‘I think the more personal conversations when you’re talking about family and friends and getting to know each other, and just those really normal stuff that you used to get on the live feed, where you just see people doing, you know, the cooking and messing it up, the silly things that you do, leaving the toaster on and often more than not burning the toast, but those type of things, having to do the washing machine, just living and doing those normal little things.

‘And obviously, the conversations that they choose, if there’s a lot of drama and stuff going on, if there was funny conversations, funny stories, they’d be missed out and stuff.

Cameron recalled one task in particular involving a tangled ‘tree thing in the garden’ where housemates had to un tangle a set of ropes.

He said: ‘But that whole thing never got aired, because there was too many arguments in the day, they cut that whole task out as if it never happened. So there is stuff that that you miss.’

The final winner Cameron Cole revealed ‘normal’ things were cut (Picture: James Shaw/REX/Shutterstock)

‘They didn’t show us screaming and banging on the window’

As well as cutting ‘normal’ parts of the day, Cameron recalled one incident that didn’t make it to our screens.

Explaining why the housemates were ‘screaming and banging on the window’, he began: ‘[One night] they were meant to shut the shutters in the garden, and we all looked out because we were in the kitchen and we thought the garden was locked but they were apparently open and they’d forgotten to shut the shutters.

‘And we just saw a random man in the garden. Because we hadn’t seen people… it’s ridiculous if you look back and it never got aired, if you actually saw the clip you’d think these people are insane, we were screaming and banging at the window, and then he looked and smirked. It was the only time we ever saw anyone.’

He went on to say that housemates weren’t allowed to try and see Big Brother crew members through the window.

‘If you stuck your head on the mirror or window which you weren’t allowed to do, they told you off, you could sometimes see a cameraman with a massive camera that way.

‘(If they did) Big Brother would shout at you, it’d say, “Housemates are reminded…”. There were silly ones like housemates are reminded not to fall asleep during the day.

‘They’d say something quite funny sometimes, like don’t put your heads on the windows, and then everyone would just be p**sing themselves laughing. It was just ridiculous.’

‘We were never told what would be filmed’

Aside from being told what they shouldn’t be doing in the house after they’d done it, like falling asleep or banging on windows, producers never told housemates what would be filmed.

‘The producers never asked us to do anything, and we never had conversations with the producers,’ Cameron said.

He added: ‘We never got told not to do anything. We never got told this will be filmed, and this won’t be, we had no idea – you have no idea at the time.’

Deana, who brought us plenty of drama in Big Brother season 13, admitted that not knowing what made it to the final edit left her ‘annoyed’ because of how much was left out.

Talking about her time on the show, she said:‘It was an emotional rollercoaster, I was quite naïve when I went on the show, I thought I’d go in there and have fun but didn’t think more into it.

‘But the year I was in there was one of the b***hiest seasons ever, constant fights and arguments and I was up for evictions eight times in a row.’

Deana was on Big Brother season 13 (Picture: Channel Four/Channel 5)

It was ‘very stressful’, she added, but still remained ‘a unique experience’.

She went on: ‘There were moments where I wished they would have added elements of my personality that they never put in the hour-long show.

‘And I think they do have an idea of how they want to portray each person, so it was a bit annoying, seeing things that they left out.’

‘There were cameras everywhere – but we soon found the one spot that wasn’t in filming view’

While Big Brother was always meant to be watching, Gos revealed that the housemates found a secret spot hidden from cameras – but not for long.

He told us: ‘When we were in there, you knew there were cameras everywhere, in the toilets, everywhere.

‘You could actually see cameramen in the mirrors, you can go knocking up to the windows and say “We can see you”.’

He continued: ‘Nothing was hidden, [but] there was one time we did find a black spot in the toilet but they soon sorted that out.

‘It was in the toilet where they couldn’t actually see us so we would go in there to wind them up, but the next day they put a wall in there, they did that overnight, they put a wall in so no one could shut the door.’

Gos and his housemates found a hidden spot away from cameras (Picture: Channel Four/Channel 5)

‘I was sent away to France in hiding before filming’

Ahead of filming in the Big Brother house, Anthony recalled being sent away in hiding – to France.

He said: ‘My experience was absolutely awesome…. it’s still one of the coolest things I’ve ever done.

‘Right from the audition process, back then it was so secret, so I got a phone call about two and a half weeks before the show started, and I had to be in a random location in London and was told someone would collect me.

‘And then I was told I was a housemate, the next day I had to be in London and was told someone would pick me up, and then I got sent away to France two weeks before the show started.

‘That in itself was a crazy, random, awesome experience – I ended up having a roadtrip to Paris with a chaperone, and then I was on the show.’

While Gos didn’t reveal a trip to Paris amid the secrets of being a housemate, he did explain that it was ‘a bit cloak and dagger’.

‘When I got the call I was in, that’s when the reality check came in,’ he said. ‘We weren’t allowed to tell anybody.’

Anthony even got a road trip to France (Picture: Shutterstock)

‘Big Brother didn’t actually change my life’

Gos, who now runs his own catering company which has worked for production shoots including Harry Styles’ music videos, insisted that Big Brother didn’t actually change his life.

‘Did it?’ he replied when asked how Big Brother changed his life.

‘Not really, I mean what did change is when you walk down, your first six months…,’ he continued, before saying that sometimes a stranger would buy him a pint in a pub or ‘random people would come u p and start talking to you’ in a nightclub.

‘But did it actually change my life? Not really no,’ he said, adding: ‘But I wouldn’t change the experience, I’d never say I didn’t enjoy it, because I loved it.’

Gos claimed Big Brother didn’t ‘really’ change his life (Picture: Channel Four/Channel 5)

‘It was like being abducted by an alien’

Recalling his overall experience, Cameron said it was like being ‘abducted by an alien’.

He said: ‘When you leave it, you will miss it for the rest of eternity. Like, I still feel like I’m in a bubble and nothing since Big Brother has ever felt the same.

‘There’s never been anything that’s given me the same buzz, it’s like the peak and you’ve just got to enjoy it, because you probably won’t ever get to do it again. You’re very privileged to get the chance to.’

Giving his advice to future contestants, he added: ‘If you enjoy it and be yourself then in my opinion, you won’t leave with any regrets and then everything else is easier after.

‘Afterwards, prepare for things to feel very weird for a while, because the world feels different.

‘It’s almost like being abducted by an alien and taken to a different planet because you don’t know anything that’s going on. I’d missed that whole period of two months.

‘I missed everything, the news, sports, all that life that went on. And then it’s almost like you always feel like you’re trying to catch up to life. It’s bizarre.’

Big Brother airs weeknights on ITV2 at 9pm.

This article was originally published on July 22, 2023.

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